The Phantom Merman
by UltimatePhantomForm
Summary: When Sam Manson's class travel to a small Mediterranean island to visit the marine reserve, she begins to discover the island's BIG secret - there is a secret community of merfolk living nearby. Together with her only friend Valerie, she discovers more and more about the shared history of humanity and merkind, but can they help defeat the darkest threat to humans and merkind yet?
1. Chapter 1

_Chapter One_

Sam Manson was excited. She and the rest of her class her going on a school trip to a marine reserve! In the Mediterranean! She was a bit of an outcast at school with her gothic ways and ultra-recyclo-vegetarian diet. However, even she was excited about this, if for different reasons than the rest of the class. She loved the environmental side of the trip, whereas everyone else was looking forward to the free time, and spending time on the beach and swimming in the sea.

The class was currently inside a coach that was taking them the last leg of their journey before they stopped at their accommodation. Sam was glad for that. Several of the 'nerds', the most prominent being Mikey, had been sick nearly the whole way here, and the entire coach stank. She also really wanted to get there so she had some time to explore on her own before the official touring began tomorrow.

The coach drove through the dusty streets of the small town they were staying just outside of, Luna Sirenius. It was an odd name, and Sam reminded herself to ask someone later why the town (more like an overgrown village, really) was named that. They passed by driftwood signs and small wooden beach huts as they left Luna Sirenius behind, travelling alongside the beach that twisted like a strand of golden thread, along the seam between the emerald cotton of the land and the sapphire silk of the sea.

The coach pulled up outside the Sea Star Hotel. A tall, thin building which had an air of defying gravity by staying up. The students tumbled off the coach, rushed to their rooms and then headed – for the majority – straight to the beach.

Danny Fenton, ordinary mer-teen, waited impatiently for his friend to get ready.

"C'mon Tucker! I heard that they got some new humans staying in Luna Sirenius! If it's true, they'll go straight to the beach, and I wanna see what other humans act like. We've already seen everyone on the island, these new guys will be great fun to watch."

At 14 years old, Danny Fenton was the younger of the two Fenton children. He had an older sister, Jasmine 'Jazz' Fenton, who was currently studying at Leviathorgan College, on the other side of the island. He was a scrawny teen at first look, although his small frame held compact, wiry muscle if you looked close enough. He was a 'Phantom Mer', meaning his colouring was monochrome, with only emerald green eyes lighting up his black and white appearance. His mother and sister both had blue markings, although the shades were different, and his father's markings were orange, so he was obviously unusual. He was the first with his colouring to be born in his town, however there were tales of others like him, from distant waters. Because of his colouring, he was a prime target of bullying at Shortfin High, and only had one real friend.

This one real friend was Tucker, a teen with bright yellow and green markings, brown skin, hair and eyes, a beret that seemed permanently fixed to his head, and thick-framed glasses. He used to be an insufferable flirt, until he realised that he wasn't really attracted to any of the mermaids at school by anything other than their looks. He was extremely good with technology, and was never seen without his shell phone. Ever. He was another prime bullying target, and so the two drew close over the years, becoming best friends before long, and they were practically brothers by this point.

The pair lived with their respective parents in the small undersea town of Solar Sirenius. It was a mirror image of its human counterpart, so names because of the times the sirens sang in each town, since they only sang above the waves under the moonlight, whereas during the time when the sun shone outside, they serenaded the small undersea town of the merfolk that had made this area their home.

The humans and merfolk of the island had made peace may centuries ago, although a large majority of the human residents no longer believed that the merpeople ever existed. The merpeople were happy to let them believe that, and continued to live their lives under the ocean's surface, although youngsters and adolescents often spied on those above due to curiosity.

Danny waited impatiently, his jet black tail with white fins swishing in time with his exited heartbeat. He had managed to see the coach carrying the new humans travel past the beach from the foam, and was exited to go back and observe them. Finally, Tucker pushed open his front door, a backpack full of snacks for the pair of them while they were watching on his back, identical to the one on Danny's was wearing, and, together, the pair swam towards the beach, and the human world above the waves…


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter Two**

Danny and Tucker surfaced just behind a cluster of rocks. They were next to Sirenius beach – the border between Luna Sirenius and Solar Sirenius. They watched as a large group of human teens appeared from somewhere in the forest behind the beach and started to begin their human beach activities.

They observed the group. There were obvious social classes – something they knew all too well about from Sharpfin High. There were the 'A-list' as they had heard them call themselves – a group of obviously popular kids – the cheerleaders and jocks (aka the bullies, if merfolk had anything in common with humans). Then there were the middle folk – those who weren't massively popular, but slid under the radar of the bullies by just being average (Tucker and Danny envied those). Then there were the 'nerds' – like human versions of their friend Sydney Pointdexter, the pair noticed with amusement – easily bullied, incredibly smart, etc., etc. Then, finally, there were the outcasts – the ones who didn't belong in any of the social groups and probably didn't care, like themselves. There were only two 'outcasts' among the humans, they noticed – a duo much like themselves – two girls, one very goth (similar, in fact, to the legendary 'gothicus angelus' – the gothic mermaid), and one girl in yellow and orange, with skin as dark as Tuckers, and a curvy figure.

Suddenly the two girls, who had been chatting with one another for the last ten or fifteen minutes, looked up sharply. The duo of merboys ducked behind the rocks quickly – hearts beating insanely fast in their chests – and hoped that the girls hadn't seen them.

When they peeked over a minute later, the girls were back to chatting. However, they the pair felt like they had done enough human watching for the day, and so gathered their stuff and headed back to Solar Sirenius to recover from their near miss.

However, they didn't notice Tucker's spare shell phone getting left behind – glistening and obviously artificial on the rocks…

Sam and her friend Valerie were chatting on the beach. Sitting on the warm golden sand, perfectly comfortable, they talked and talked about any topic under the sun. The other students had split up into their relevant social groups, although they were doing similar activities – there wasn't a huge about of choice in activities.

However, the two girls often felt like they were being watched. Sam was stealthily looking around while still chatting with Valerie, and Valerie was keeping up the conversation so that if someone was watching them, that person wouldn't suspect they had been caught in the act. Suddenly, Sam gasped almost silently and said to Valerie in a strained-sounding hiss "Look! Out at those rocks! There's two boys there watching everyone!"

"How on earth did they get out there?" asked Valerie, for the rocks were two far away from the shore for an ordinary swimmer.

"Not a clue. Just look."

The two of them snapped their heads up sharply, just in time for them two see the edges of two heads ducking behind the rocks. The two boys were very odd, from what glances they had caught of them. One appeared to be wearing a red beret – seriously, while swimming? And the other appeared to have white hair and weird green eyes. That, and they were two far out for a swimmer to swim. After the two ducked down, they must have left because the girls didn't see them again at all.

Later that afternoon, Sam and Valerie found a small rowing boat that was only missing its benches. They bought it from the man –

"You sure you want this?"

"Yeah, it'll be useful"

"Fine, if you'll use it, you can have it for a tenner."

"You have a deal!"

And decided to head out to those rocks to see whether the boys left anything behind.

Upon arriving at the rocks, there didn't appear to be anything unusual. But upon closer inspection, there was something metal glittering inside a ridge between two rocks. With a lot of tugging, it came out.

"What the…" said Valerie in disbelief. It looked a little bit like a cell phone, but it was made in the shape of a muscle shell. Hang on, it was made of a muscle shell – one bigger than any they had ever seen before.

The two girls searched the rock some more, but all they found was the recently dubbed 'shell phone' (courtesy of Valerie). They got back into the boat and started back towards the shore. When they reached it, they hid the shell in their beach bags and headed back to the hotel, confusion and suspicion swirling like tides in the ocean within their minds…


End file.
